English Christian male who is not backward in coming forward with opinions.

Friday, July 09, 2010

The European Community and Xenophobia

A letter I wrote to Evangelicals Now magazine.

30th June 1996

Dear John.

Sir Fred Catherwood should be able to distinguish between a hatred of The European Community and xenophobia. Most people I know are highly critical of the EC and the two European Courts. We believe that governments since 1970 have sold our national birthright for a mess of European potage, but we have no hatred for the citizens of the EC.

In the 1970 general election I had a choice of three candidates all of whom were pro Europe. For the only time in an election, local, national or European I deliberately abstained having been as effectively disenfranchised as when I went to live in Nigeria later that year.

After we were in Europe, Wilson gave people a referendum about continuing in Europe. It was like a woman, having been forced into a shotgun wedding, being asked if she still consented, when the baby was a toddler. Not surprisingly the vote was for the status quo.

I do not understand how even a Europhile like Sir Fred can tell us that the continental beef industry has been damaged more than ours over the BSE fiasco. There are plenty of customers for British beef . I am even now digesting my Sunday roast beef dinner. Why should not the world be able to buy our beef? No one has established that it is anything other than wholesome.

The thing that upsets me the most about this whole sad affair is that there is no free market at all. The price of beef has not come down. Neither government nor the industry want a free market. The farmers want their guaranteed incomes, relying on the state rather than providence and good husbandry for their living.

A plague on the EC in general and the Common Agricultural Policy in particular. Let us get out of the EC, out of the European Courts. Let us reestablish a nation state of the United Kingdom.

Of course if the Scots or the Welsh want their own way, well some of us would be prepared to be gracious.